Patagonia charts new territory with denim disruption

Outdoor wear retailer Patagonia is trying to revolutionize the way denim is manufactured, sold and worn with a new collection.

Patagonia's new denim collection is made with environmentally friendly dye, Fair Trade Certified sewing practices, and 100% organic cotton grown without pesticides, herbicides, or synthetic fertilizers.

“Traditional denim is a filthy business. That drove us to change the way our jeans are made,” said Helena Barbour, Patagonia’s Business Unit Director, Sportswear. “We wanted to find an alternative solution to using the standard indigo dyeing methods we once employed to create denim. It took several years of research, innovation, trial and error, but the result is a new path for denim. We’re hopeful other manufacturers will follow suit and help us change the denim industry.”

Typically, denim production involves the use of dangerous chemicals to grow conventional cotton; dying it produces millions of gallons of wastewater; and, too often, jeans are sewn in factories where workers may not be treated fairly.Patagonia’s new dyeing and manufacturing process uses dyestuffs that bond more easily to cotton, minimizing the resource-intensive and environmentally destructive indigo dyeing, rinsing and garment washing process used to create traditional denim.



To further promote awareness about the denim industry’s numerous environmental and social harms, Patagonia is launching a campaign this month, “Because Denim is Filthy Business.” The campaign, which runs across Patagonia’s website, social channels and catalogs, focuses both on the problems with the current denim manufacturing standards as well as solutions for change.

Watch a campaign video here.